The present invention relates to a reciprocally vacuumized and pressurized food processing apparatus which is particularly adapted for preparing dried roast meats and processed meat products of the like, and all kinds of deeply boiled food stewed in gravy, and preserves of various sorts and dried fried vegetables and fruits in one aspect; and also adapted for preparing food which is processed with additives or must be soaked in advance in another aspect.
Generally, the available processed food of many kinds, including foods preserved with gravy, sold on the market must be boiled, soaked and de-oiled before packing. The soaking process is conventionally taken in a natural manner with the food plunged directly in the specially seasoned juice or gravy. This kind of process is time consuming and not very effective in making the processed food completely soaked. For instance, it takes about 18 hours to make some vegetables and the pineapples effectively soaked; and it even takes more than 10 days to soak the fruit of various kinds in producing preserves; and the preserves can easily go bad, provided no refrigeration equipment is available, in the soaking process because the added fructose becomes easily soured in such a long time by bacteria propagating in the soaking juice. In case the soaking process is carried out in a refrigerated place, the low temperature will render the soakage ineffective and make the process longer. Moreover, the residual soaking juice is not easily removed by a centrifuge. In a conventional frying process, the skins of the processed food are scorched frequently because the frying oil does not easily penetrate the skins of the processed food, causing the inner thereof rare but the skins scorched in one aspect, and the processed food is not well de-oiled in another aspect.
The present inventor has noticed the above cited problems and comes up with a novel reciprocally vacuumized and pressurized multi-purpose food processing apparatus which is equipped with a frying pan encompassed by an external covering with a space defined therebetween so as to permit steam to circulate therein for heating of the frying pan, and with a messy basket in which is received the to-be processed food and that is driven by a motor and a pneumatically operated cylinder so that the messy basket can be moved up and down and spinned continually in one particular direction; and a number of infusing and a recollection duct are in communication with the frying pan so that different kinds of fluid can be infused into the frying pan for soaking, blanching , and frying the food received in the meshy basket and also be discharged into a number of reservoirs; and an air drawing duct and a pressure exerting duct are coupled to the frying pan so as to reciprocally subject the frying pan to a pressurized and vacuumized state, making the soaking and frying process faster and more efficient; and a centrifuge is also provided so as to remove the soaking, blanching and frying fluids or oil adhering on the processed food.